Dennis Oliech used to earn millions a week in salary when he signed with top-flight European clubs.
Oliech’s big break came in 2005 when he signed a four-year contract with the French Ligue 1 team Nantes, with a fee of $3.7 million (KSh281.2 million).
Apart from Nantes, Oliech also played for French clubs Auxerre, and Ajaccio before signing for Dubai CSC in 2015.
Oliech hanged the boots a few years ago after a lustrous career in football locally and abroad, which bore him a huge fortune.
The Kenyan legendary footballer was once ranked as the wealthiest footballer in the country.
However, Oliech’s wealth vanished soon after he retired from professional football.
A lot has been said about how Oliech’s wealth was ‘squandered’ but in May 2022 the footballer himself opened up.
Oliech while Oliech speaking to the Kenya Psychiatric Association (KPA), which had kicked off its annual campaign on the May Mental Health Awareness Month to educate Kenyans on their health condition, said listed family and friends as people who are also capable of affecting one’s mental health.
Narrating some of the challenges he faced when he was playing overseas, Oliech lamented that his family and friends were quite demanding.
Oliech said family members and friends always wanted him to send them money.
“Family is the biggest challenge that I had because family and friends were always quite demanding. Wherever I am they always wanted me to send them money and my friends wanted this and that,” Oliech lamented.
Oliech noted the biggest hurdle was that his friends and family members always assumed that he was making a lot of money abroad.
He says this is something many Kenyan international players experience to date and that affects their concentration on the pitch hence affecting their performances.
“You’ll find that the same player would go up to six months without playing because he’s suffering from the pressures from home of their family members asking for money,” he said.
He added, “They would do so because I am either playing in Europe, Qatar, or France but little do they know that they are affecting my mental health. Because they are demanding something yet they don’t know what you are going through behind the scenes.”
Oliech noted that as a result of the demands made by family and friends, some people who travel abroad for work and cut off their family members for even years.
He also called on anyone having mental issues to seek help and talk to a trained counselor.
“This is because when they are away for work some are even suffering. I would like to encourage people who are suffering mentally to go out there and seek help. Go and talk to someone experienced someone who is able to talk to you and assist you,” he said.
